


My Weapon

by secooper87



Series: Adventures of a Line Hopper [8]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doctor Who
Genre: Action, Action/Adventure, Adventure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-03
Updated: 2012-03-15
Packaged: 2017-11-01 02:12:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 19,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/350820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secooper87/pseuds/secooper87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy meets the Daleks.  "Vampires plus evil-exterminatey-hate-monsters equals supreme slayage!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The moment that Buffy heard the word "EXTERMINATE", she knew she was in trouble.

She had been on a date with Riley, and it had been going well. But then they'd seen the flying saucer, and, of course, they had to check it out, and as they got closer and closer, Buffy could hear voices. Metallic, scratchy, screeching voices, punctuated by human screams.

"DO NOT MOVE!" they shouted. "DO NOT MOVE! OR YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"

Buffy stopped in her tracks. Exterminate. Whenever she said that word to the Doctor, it got an automatic gut reaction out of him — pure fear. And anything that made the Doctor that scared was something Buffy knew she wouldn't like. She dragged Riley down a back alley, and shushed him.

The pepper pot shaped object that flew by the alley was about the same height as Buffy, covered with bumps along its lower half, and equipped with — what looked like — a sink plunger and an egg whisk. She recognized the egg whisk. She'd seen it before — at the Concurrence. Which made these…

"Daleks," she breathed.

Weren't they supposed to be extinct? Legendary monsters no longer around to terrorize the universe? Yeah, apparently, they were legendary, nonexistent creatures the way vampires were legendary, nonexistent creatures.

"Daleks?" Riley whispered.

"They're…" What could she say? She didn't know much about them, but whenever she heard something new, it just made them sound worse. "…bad," Buffy decided.

"Are we talking vampire bad, or Polgara Demon bad?" asked Riley.

"A friend of mine once told me if Daleks ever arrived on this planet," said Buffy, "I should move to another one."

"So… worse than a Polgara Demon," Riley said.

"Maybe a little." Buffy shushed him, then crept towards the edge of the alley. She could hear the Daleks, in the distance, interrogating the people crying in the streets. Should she rush out, into the street, and try to help them? Or would that just get her killed? Should she stay here, and try to find some way to get Riley out of this alive.

"WE REQUIRE INFORMATION," the Dalek voice commanded.

"I'll tell you anything!" a sobbing woman said. "Please, just don't kill me!"

"Leave her alone!" a man nearby cried, hugging two small, screaming children. "She's done nothing to you!"

"SILENCE!" a Dalek demanded of the man.

Riley reached for his sidearm, and Buffy sighed. Yeah, she might not know that much about Daleks, but she knew enough to understand that guns weren't going to help. She grabbed the gun out of his hand, and shook it at him. Then, she threw it away, and crossed her arms, trying to make a point.

"WE REQUIRE THE LOCATION OF THE HUMANOID FEMALE KNOWN AS 'SLAYER'," the first Dalek said.

Buffy's breath caught in her throat.

Riley pointed to her, and mouthed the word, "You?"

Buffy nodded.

"What for?" he mouthed.

"Bad things," Buffy mouthed back.

"I don't know who you're talking about," the woman pleaded. "Please. I have kids."

"EXTERMINATE!" the Daleks cried.

And Buffy looked on in horror, as they killed — not just the woman, but her kids and husband as well, their skeletons lighting up in the night air. She clenched her fists by her sides.

She had to go out. Could she take them? Well, no. She couldn't. She'd heard enough about Daleks to know that she couldn't touch them with hand-to-hand combat. But how could she stand around, when innocent people were being killed? She had to try! Maybe provide enough of a distraction that the other people in the street could get away? Buffy began to dart out from her hiding place, but Riley caught her by the arm and pulled her back.

"ALERT!" one of the Daleks shouted. "SCANS REVEAL PRESENCE OF TWO UNIDENTIFIED HUMANOID LIFE FORMS IN THE VICINITY."

Unidentified? Oh, that was probably because of all the weird modifications that the Initiative had given Riley. And as for her — well, the Daleks might not really know what the Slayer genetics really looked like.

"DNA CODE MATCHES THE HUMANOID FEMALE KNOWN AS 'SLAYER'!" another Dalek called.

Okay, or maybe they did.

"LOCATE THE SLAYER. EXTERMINATE THE UNKNOWN HUMANOID!" a third commanded.

"SEEK, LOCATE, EXTERMINATE!" the Daleks chanted. "SEEK, LOCATE, EXTERMINATE!"

Riley grabbed Buffy's hand, and looked deep into her eyes. They had to run. Buffy knew that. If the Daleks found Riley — she couldn't let anything happen to Riley. They both took a deep breath, and then darted out of the alley.

"ALERT!" the Daleks shouted. "UNIDENTIFIED HUMANOIDS LOCATED."

"EXTERMINATE THE MALE!" another Dalek commanded.

Buffy ran even faster, almost dragging Riley after her. The Daleks took to the air, and started flying all around them, shooting. Buffy thanked her lucky stars for her quick reflexes, as she ducked and dived with Riley and got out of the way in time. She could spot Riley's car just up ahead.

"Car!" she shouted at him.

They both jumped inside, and Riley floored it. The car zoomed away, and Buffy twisted back in her seat. She looked out the back window at the Daleks floating in the air, watching Buffy and Riley get away. She breathed a sigh of relief, and sat back in the seat, as they left the Daleks behind.

"What were those Dalek things?" asked Riley.

"Problems," said Buffy.

"And what do they want with you?"

"No idea," said Buffy. "But I'm guessing something bad."

Riley tapped his fingers on the wheel. "I'm taking you to the Initiative," he said. "They might not be your friends, right now, but they'll be able to handle these Daleks. They'll keep you safe."

"No," said Buffy. "The Daleks have already seen me, and they said they want me. Sooner or later they're going to track me down. I've got to get to somewhere without any people. Like — oh, vampire central. Graveyard. Vampires plus evil-exterminatey-hate-monsters equals supreme slayage." She paused. "No, wait. First, I've got to get to a phone."

Riley reached into his pocket, and handed Buffy a cell phone. Buffy stared at it. She'd never bothered to get one, herself. She'd heard they didn't work very well, or get very good reception, and they took forever to charge. But she was glad he had one now.

She flipped open the phone, and turned it on. Then she called Willow at the dorm. Willow picked up.

"Buffy?"

"Wills, listen, Riley and I are in serious trouble, and I need your help," said Buffy, hurriedly. "Remember that red notebook I'm always writing in?"

"The one you told me not to open, yet?" asked Willow.

"That's the one," said Buffy. "Grab that, and meet me and Riley at the north-most cemetery. I'm going to need it."

"Got it," said Willow. And she hung up.

Buffy flipped the phone closed, and turned it off. She handed it back to Riley. "You got that?"

"North most cemetery," he said. "Here we come."


	2. Chapter 2

A short time later, Buffy and Riley holed up in a dark, dusty mausoleum, made up of gray, cobweb-covered stone walls. Riley brought out a small flashlight, to give them some form of illumination. Willow must have spotted the light, because she appeared in the doorway only seconds later. Buffy jumped to her feet and leapt towards Willow, sweeping her into a tight hug.

"Did you get it?" asked Buffy.

"Yeah," said Willow, handing the notebook over to Buffy.

Buffy pulled Willow into the mausoleum, where they hid behind the coffin in the center. They all sat, crouched in the darkness, Riley's flashlight giving them just enough light to see the notebook. Buffy dropped it into her lap, and opened it, flipping through the pages.

"No, no, no, there!" she said, as she landed on the page she wanted. "Daleks."

"What's in the notebook?" asked Riley.

"Clues," said Buffy. "Just… little tidbits I've picked up. You know. Dropped details. Stuff my friend didn't realize he was telling me. I write it all down in here." She glanced up at Willow. "I learned my lesson after that Ascension thing."

Riley shone the flashlight more directly at the notebook, and squinted at the page. A page entitled 'Daleks', with a long line of bullet points scrawled in ball-point pen. "If this is true, I'm not liking it," he said. He started reading off the page. "'Daleks cannot be killed by any Earth weapon. The weak point is the eyestalk, but that will just blind them and won't kill them. Daleks will kill on sight, and the most important thing to do when faced with a Dalek is to give it a reason to keep you alive. One Dalek could completely destroy the world.'"

Willow pointed at the bullet points at the bottom of the page. "Right now, I'm a bit more worried about these," she said. "'If you think of a plan, the Daleks will have thought of it first. If they're keeping you alive, or if they let you escape, it's for a reason.'"

Buffy and Riley looked at one another.

"They wanted us to get away," Buffy said.

Oh, of course they had, because they'd been zipping through the air before, and when Buffy and Riley had gotten into the car, the Daleks had just stopped. They'd let Buffy and Riley escape.

"If this information is actually correct." Riley frowned. "You said you got this from… a friend, right?"  
"Friend?" said Buffy. "Did I say friend? No, not a friend. It was… you know. Just some stuff I found out. Using… research and books and things." She stared intently at the notebook. "Okay, yeah, it was a friend."

"The same friend who told you to move to another planet?" Riley asked.

"He's an… astronomer," Buffy said, flipping the notebook shut. "A really smart astronomer."

"You do realize—" Riley began.

"Buffy," Willow cut in, "if you can't fight these things, and Riley can't fight these things, then what are we going to do?"

"I can fight them," said Buffy.

"I thought no weapon could get rid of them," said Riley.

"Yeah," said Buffy. "No weapon. Except mine."

Riley and Willow both opened their mouths to speak, but a loud explosion rocked the mausoleum. Buffy, Willow, and Riley all huddled together, scarcely daring to breathe. Dust and debris tumbled down from the ceiling, but the Daleks hadn't found them yet. Or maybe… the Daleks had found them, but were keeping them alive for a reason?

"They can scan for us," Riley whispered. "They have to know where we are."

"Then why haven't they killed us yet?" Willow whispered.

"Me," Buffy breathed. "It's because they want me alive." She looked over at Riley and Willow. "They've got no reason to keep you two alive. They just want me. Maybe, if I give myself up—"

"No!" Willow and Riley retorted in harsh whispers.

Another explosion rocked the mausoleum.

"Now would be a really good time to use your weapon," Riley told Buffy.

"I don't have it, yet!" Buffy replied. "I'm working on it!"

"Great," said Riley. "So, basically, we're screwed."

"Well, what about magic?" Willow asked. "I mean, I have some stuff with me. Maybe…?"

Buffy felt a grin spread across her face. "Go for it."

Willow dug out the few magic items she had on her, and stepped into the center of the mausoleum, arranging them in a circle. Another explosion, and Buffy could hear the Daleks shouting orders outside. She looked back at Willow, who now sat in the middle of the arranged items, chanting to Hecate.

Please, let this work. Please, please, please.

A sudden rush of red energy emerged around Willow, circling her and spinning around her body. She gathered the red energy towards her, and then threw it out the door of the mausoleum and towards the Daleks. Buffy and Riley peaked around the side of the coffin to watch. Outside, the Daleks all spun, out of control, flying through the air haphazardly.

"ALERT! ALERT! PROPULSION SYSTEMS MALFUNCTIONING!" they cried.

Buffy and Riley started laughing.

Willow grinned. "I'm good," she said, getting to her feet. 

"IDENTIFY SOURCE OF INTERFERENCE," a Dalek shouted.

"SOURCE LOCATED!" another proclaimed. It swerved, its eyestalk now pointed towards Willow, who stood in the center of the mausoleum. "EXTERMINATE!" it shouted as it managed to swoop forward through the air, and shot at her.

Willow lifted up her hand, using the magical red energy to deflect the Dalek's laser beam away from her. She winced, and shook her hand.

"Ow," she complained. "That was a lot more power than I thought."

"INITIALIZE PSYCHIC FIELD DAMPENERS," the Dalek shouted.

"PSYCHIC FIELD DAMPENERS ACTIVE!" another Dalek reported.

"Yeah?" said Willow. "Well, dampen this!" She held up both her hands, and the red energy surged forwards.

Then it crackled, fizzled, and died out.

"Oh," said Willow, staring down at her hands. "You… did."

The Daleks all swooped through the air and rushed through the doorway of the mausoleum, gathering around Willow, encircling her with their bulky mechanical suits. Willow looked around, tried to back away, but nearly ran into a Dalek behind her, and jumped back into the middle of the Dalek circle. Buffy made a move to step out and help Willow, but Willow gave her an evil glare, and Riley pulled her back behind the coffin.

"DO NOT MOVE!" the Daleks shouted at Willow. "YOU ARE A PRISONER OF THE DALEKS!"

Their egg-whisk gun-things twitched with every word.

One of the Daleks swiveled around in front of Willow, its eyestalk glaring into her face. "WE REQUIRE THE HUMANOID FEMALE KNOWN AS 'SLAYER'."

Willow raised up her hands. "I'm not telling you where she is," she said. "So, yeah. Beat that."

"THEN YOU ARE USELESS," said the Daleks. "EXTERMIN—"

"Wait!" Buffy shouted. She jumped out in to the open, in front of the Daleks. Riley jumped up, too, and tried to pull Buffy back, but no, he wasn't going to do that again, not this time. She shrugged Riley off, and took another step forwards.

The Daleks swiveled their eyestalks around, a dozen angry blue lights all fixed on her.

"I'm the Slayer," Buffy said. "I'm the one you want."


	3. Chapter 3

Willow's eyes went wide. "Buffy, no," she said.

"SCANS CONFIRM THIS IS THE HUMANOID FEMALE KNOWN AS 'SLAYER'," said one of the Daleks.

The Daleks swiveled, aiming their egg-whisk gun things at Buffy. Another one slid forwards. "YOU ARE A PRISONER OF THE DALEKS! YOU WILL COME WITH US! "

Buffy met Willow's eyes for a moment, then looked over her shoulder at Riley. She knew what she had to do. She turned back to the Daleks. "Only if you let my friends live. And let them go."

The Daleks paused, as if considering. Then:

"AGREED."

Buffy stepped forward, and Riley followed. Buffy swung around to face Riley. "Riley, get out of here," she told him.

"No way," he said.

"I said get out," Buffy hissed.

"And I said no," Riley retorted.

"THE HUMANOID MALE WILL FOLLOW," a Dalek barked. "OR ALL HUMANOIDS WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"

Willow stepped forward. "Well, then I'm coming, too," she said.

Buffy ran up to Willow. "No, Willow, I need you to do something for me," said Buffy. "Stay here until the Daleks are gone. When the coast is clear, go out and find everyone else. Make sure they're okay."

"But I can't—" Willow started.

"You have to," said Buffy. "You're the only one who knows what we're actually fighting. If Xander and Giles and Anya and everyone else don't know about the Daleks, they'll try to fight back, and they'll get themselves killed. Please."

Willow met Buffy's eyes. "You'll come back, right?"

"Yeah," said Buffy, with a reassuring smile. She handed her the notebook. "Remember," she urged, in a low tone. "What I told you. About weapons." She shook the notebook at Willow. "It's coming."

Willow's eyes went wide, and her mouth formed into an 'O'. She took the notebook, and stepped away from Buffy. "Okay," she said, her hands hugging the red cover to her chest. "Good luck, Buffy."

Buffy nodded. "And you," she said.

"THE HUMANOIDS WILL MOVE!" the Dalek closest to Buffy shouted.

"MOVE! MOVE! OR YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!" the others shouted.

"We're moving," said Buffy. She looked over at Riley, and took his hand in hers. She squeezed it, and hoped that he'd get the message. She couldn't fight Daleks with hand-to-hand combat, she knew that. But she had a weapon, and until she got it, it was better to play along and not fight back. She and Riley followed the Daleks out of the mausoleum.

"So, _you're_ the Supreme Beings, right?" Buffy asked them.

"THAT IS CORRECT," the Dalek beside her confirmed.

Buffy looked him over, more carefully. "And you don't have hands."

"They've got a plunger, though," Riley offered.

"Great!" said Buffy. "So they're not the Supreme _Beings_ in the universe. They're the Supreme _Plumbers_!"

"SILENCE!" the Dalek commanded.

"What, you don't like my quips?" Buffy said. "I'm insulted. I've got Slayer-level punning power. I'd like to see you do better, Mr. Supreme-Roto-Router."

"PRISONERS WILL CEASE TALKING!" a Dalek behind her shouted. "OR YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"

"Yeah, right!" said Buffy. "You guys wanted me alive. What do you want me for, anyways? And why'd you decide to bring Riley along?"

"THE HUMANOID FEMALE WILL CEASE TALKING, OR THE MALE WILL BE EXTERMINATED!" another Dalek shouted.

Oh. Damn. That's why they'd wanted Riley. So they could kill him if she pissed them off. Buffy shut up pretty quickly, after that, and followed the Daleks with silent steps.

No, Buffy thought. Daleks _didn't_ have hands. Because they didn't need them. Didn't need to restrain Buffy physically at all. Death was their hands, and threats and intimidation were how they kept their victims in line. All they had to do was threaten the people Buffy loved, and she'd cooperate.

She and Riley had made it about ten feet away from the mausoleum, when the Daleks stopped.

"HALT!" they commanded.

Buffy looked around, trying to figure out why they could have stopped. Was there some kind of teleport or something to beam them up? Or was that just a sci-fi TV show thing that didn't happen in real life?

The Daleks swiveled around to face the mausoleum. "INITIALIZE EXPLOSIVE DETONATION," one of them commanded.

Buffy's eyes went wide. "What? No!"

She dropped Riley's hand and surged forward, just as the explosion from the mausoleum threw her back. She felt her entire body spackled with mud and dirt and dust, and when she breathed, her lungs burned. She coughed, and tried to get a hold of herself. She got back onto shaky feet, and peered through the smoke. All that remained of the mausoleum was rubble and ruins.

"Willow," Buffy breathed.

She couldn't believe it. She couldn't even move. She just kept staring at where the mausoleum had once been, feeling the terrible, empty numbness of shock run through her body. She kept hoping, even though she knew it was pointless, that one of the tumbled stones would move, that Willow would come leaping out, alive and healthy. Or even just that Willow would give some small moan, some sound to indicate that she was still alive. But there was nothing.

Willow was dead.

"MOVE!" a Dalek voice screeched in Buffy's ear.

Buffy turned on the Dalek. She could feel all that sorrow and hurt welling up inside her, forcing its way into rage and anger and fury. "You!" she shouted. "I'll kill you for that!"

"HUMANOID FEMALE WILL COOPERATE," the Dalek shouted at her. "OR THE MALE WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"

"Buffy," came Riley's voice, from behind her. "I think they're serious."

Buffy spun around, and saw that Riley had been surrounded, on all sides, by Daleks, their gun-things twitching eagerly. Buffy forced her anger back, clenching her fists by her sides.

"You told me that Willow would be safe," she gritted out through her teeth. "We had a deal!"

"DALEKS DO NOT MAKE DEALS WITH INFERIOR SPECIES," the Dalek said.

"MOVE!" shouted another, from Buffy's right. "OR THE HUMANOID MALE WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"

And Buffy realized, for the first time, why the Doctor was so scared of the Daleks. Because you couldn't reason with them, you couldn't bargain with them, you couldn't attack them, and they wanted nothing more than to kill your friends and family, and destroy everything and everyone you knew and loved.

And Buffy realized that she was afraid of them, too.

* * *

Buffy stood, in the middle of a Dalek ship, with Riley at her side. They were caged inside an invisible barrier thing that was impossibly strong. Buffy had kicked out at it, punched at it, done everything she could, but it had just shimmered blue, and then died back into invisibility.

The thing was, even though the Daleks had been specifically looking for Buffy, now that they had her, both Buffy and Riley were pretty much being ignored. Maybe the Daleks wanted to take over the Earth, or something, and needed to make sure they got Buffy out of the way before they could do it. But if that was the case, then why hadn't they just killed her? Why had they let her escape, then captured her shortly afterwards?

None of it made any sense. And Buffy really hated enemies she couldn't attack that made no sense.

She watched as the Daleks whirled around her, barking out commands over one another, commands that sounded like they'd been taken directly out of a physics textbook. Or a military version of a physics textbook, maybe. It all sounded very technical and confusing, and Buffy couldn't make heads or tails of it. Their little sucker plunger-arm things occasionally connected with small circular inserts on the machines surrounding them, making the machines flicker into life. The only word Buffy could pick out with any certainty was the word, "EXTERMINATE". The Daleks used that word _a lot_.

"Hey, if you want someone to exterminate," Buffy called, "there's this freaky part-demon part-cyborg thing called Adam. I wouldn't mind if you exterminated him!"

"HUMANOIDS WILL CEASE TALKING!" one of the Daleks screeched.

Buffy banged her hand against the energy field. "Then why am I here?" she demanded. "You wanted me, specifically. So why are you ignoring me? What do you want me for?"

"You really are always like that, aren't you?" asked Riley.

"Always like what?" asked Buffy, her hand resting on the energy field, blue light rippling out from her palm.

"Asking questions," said Riley. "Being nosy."

"Well, yeah, I'm asking questions!" Buffy said. "These guys just killed who knows how many people to find me, and they're not doing anything! I want to know why!"

"Buffy, calm down," Riley urged. "You can't form a strategy without—"

"I can't form a strategy at all," said Buffy, through her teeth. "If I do anything, and I mean _anything_ , including looking at the Daleks funny or breathing the wrong way or saying the wrong thing, they're going to kill you. That's why they kept you alive, Riley. To keep me in line." Her hand clenched into a fist. "I can't lose you like I lost Willow. I just can't."

Riley scanned his eyes across the room. He pulled Buffy in close, and whispered into her ear, "Do you recognize any of this technology, or understand what the Daleks are saying to each other?"

"No," said Buffy. "Why would I—?"

"I mean," Riley interrupted, still whispering into her ear, "that we can gather intelligence while we're here. About the Daleks. Find out their weaknesses. Their war plans. That sort of thing. Then we can get it back to the Initiative and—"

"No Initiative!" Buffy hissed.

"They have the resources we'll need," Riley told her.

"They also want to kill me," Buffy said.

"And the Daleks don't?"

Buffy said nothing.

"Buffy, you have to think about…" Riley trailed off, as he noticed one of the Daleks approaching them.

The Dalek rolled forwards, its eyestalk scanning them both up and down. Then its eyestalk rested on Buffy, the malevolent blue light burning into Buffy's retinas.

"YOU ARE THE HUMANOID FEMALE KNOWN AS 'SLAYER'?" it demanded.

"Yeah," said Buffy. "And you're the creeps that killed my best friend. What of it?"

"YOU WILL BE TAKEN FOR FULL BRAIN EXTRACTION," the Dalek shouted. "ANY RESISTANCE, AND THE HUMANOID MALE WILL BE EXTERMINATED."

"Brain what?" Buffy exclaimed.

The energy barrier lifted. Okay, enough with the fun and games. This was Slayer time. The moment the Daleks killed her, they'd have no need to keep Riley alive. They'd kill him, too. And if the Daleks were going to kill her and Riley, anyways, Buffy figured they might as well go down fighting. She leapt at the Dalek, aiming her foot for its eyestalk. Eyestalk was the weakest point — she remembered that. Maybe if she could just….

"EXTERMINATE!" shouted a Dalek to her left.

A light shone in Buffy's eyes, and pain tore through every fiber of her being, consuming her, eating away at her until she was nothing but fire and death and screaming. Except she couldn't scream, couldn't get enough air in her lungs, but her insides screamed instead, as the fiery pain continued to rip through her body, and everywhere the fire spread turned from red hot pain to white, bland numbness.

The next thing Buffy knew, she was lying on the floor. She tried to get up, but she couldn't feel her arms. She couldn't feel her legs. And the numbness kept spreading.

"PARALYZATION RAY SUCCESSFUL," the Dalek to Buffy's left shouted. "THE HUMANOID FEMALE HAS BEEN NEUTRALIZED."

"EXTERMINATE THE MALE!" the Dalek in front of Buffy shouted.

"No!" Buffy forced out through increasingly numb lips.

But the Daleks were coming forward, and Riley couldn't do anything, and Buffy couldn't protect him, and this was the end, this was the end, first Willow, and then Riley, and the Earth was doomed and they'd find all the rest of her friends and…

And that was when it happened.

Red lights flashed through the Dalek ship, horns blared out an ear-piercing warning, and the Daleks backed away from Buffy and Riley as if lightning had just zapped them.

"ALERT!" they all started shouting. "ALERT!"

Riley looked around, completely bewildered. Buffy, despite the increasing paralysis, could feel herself smiling, as a wind whipped up from nowhere, and she heard a wheezing, groaning sound roaring through the air.

"What is that?" Riley shouted at Buffy.

Buffy's smile spread through every fiber of her being, like sunlight bursting through the clouds, as she watched the blue police box appear in front of them. "My weapon."


	4. Chapter 4

Riley struggled to find words to express his thoughts. "Your weapon is a phone?" he asked.

Buffy didn't have to answer. The Daleks did that for her.

"ALERT!" the Daleks shrieked. "ALERT! IT IS THE DOCTOR!"

"IT IS THE DOCTOR!" the other Daleks repeated. "IT IS THE DOCTOR!"

The doors of the police box creaked open, and out jumped a youngish man with floppy brown hair and green eyes, a blue bow tie around his neck.

"Oh, hello!" said the Doctor, a grin on his face, as the doors of the TARDIS clicked shut behind him. He clapped his hands. "You didn't really think you could pull off an invasion of Earth without my popping by for a visit?"

The moment the Daleks caught a glimpse of the Doctor, they instinctively backed away. Their eyestalks seemed to tremble in fear, and even the pulsing of their life-support machines grew a little faster.

"They're afraid," Riley realized, a little stunned.

The Doctor clasped his hands behind his back and faced the Daleks, looking completely confident and sure of himself.

"YOU ARE THE DOCTOR!" one of the Daleks shouted. "YOU ARE AN ENEMY OF THE DALEKS! YOU WILL BE EXTERMIN—"

"The old Dalek motto! You know, I've missed that," said the Doctor. "No, actually, I'm lying. I haven't missed that. I haven't missed that at all." He began pacing the area in front of them, edging increasingly closer to the Daleks. "But, just between you and me, speaking as mortal enemies, what are you really here for?" He sidled towards the Daleks, ducking down to look directly into one of their eyestalks. "Because you could blast this planet out of the sky if you wanted. But, no. You're here for a reason. A very specific reason. What is it?"

"Buffy!" came a loud whisper from Buffy's right. A voice Buffy recognized. A voice that sounded like… but it couldn't be…

"Willow?" Riley whispered.

Buffy tried to move her head, but she couldn't. Stupid annoying paralysis. Buffy cursed the Daleks out, vehemently, in her head.

"She's paralyzed," Riley whispered — in answer to some unknown question from Willow, no doubt.

Buffy felt four hands pulling her up off the floor. She tried to move, tried to look and see for herself, but she couldn't. All she could see was the way the floor moved beneath her and, out of the corner of her eye, the Doctor, who was still chattering away to the Daleks in front of him.

"DALEKS DO NOT ANSWER TO INFERIOR SPECIES!" the Daleks proclaimed.

"Are you calling _me_ inferior? While you're flying around in this wreck of a space ship?" the Doctor cried. "Where's your Empire? Where's the fleet of brand new Daleks, tearing across the cosmos? Where's your glorious new Dalek paradigm?"

"DALEKS ARE THE SUPREME BEINGS!" one of the Daleks shouted.

"THE DALEK EMPIRE WILL CONQUER ALL!" another shouted.

"So you do have an Empire, then?" the Doctor asked. "Somewhere in the future? But _you're_ not in the future. _You're_ not with the Dalek army. You're here, skulking around in the past." He eyed the Daleks. "Oh, I see. Fallen out of favor with the Dalek Supreme, have we?"

"THE DALEKS WILL TRIUMPH," shouted a Dalek. "ALL OTHER LIFE FORMS WILL BE IRRELEVANT!"

"Irrelevant, but not exterminated," the Doctor said, tapping a finger against his lips. "Well, that's very interesting." He stepped forward. "And you know what else is interesting? You said you were going to exterminate me, and you haven't yet. I haven't given you a single reason to keep me alive. But… here I am. Still alive and breathing. Why?"

Riley and Willow nearly dropped Buffy onto the floor, as Willow's hands lost their hold. But they caught her just in the nick of time. The Doctor didn't even have to look at them, but raised his voice to muddle the noise of their escape.

"Oh, come on!" the Doctor said. "Your greatest enemy steps out, right in front of you — no weapons, no shields, no possible way to fight back — and what? Not even a pot-shot! What are you playing at? What's your game this time, Daleks?"

"THE DOCTOR WILL BE EXTERMINATED!" one of the Daleks cried.

"Then do it already!" He threw up his hands. "I am the Ka Faraq Gatri! The Destroyer of Worlds! The Oncoming Storm! The closest thing you have to the Devil! I am your greatest nightmare, the one person that keeps you afraid, the one person you know can stop you, every single time. And while I'm still alive, Daleks, you are doomed. There's nowhere you can run. Nowhere you can hide. So kill me already!" He leaned in closer, and continued, in a growl, "Don't you want to?"

If he was trying to call the Daleks on their bluff, he shouldn't have. Buffy knew that right away. She tried to struggle to get free and help him, but she still couldn't move. She could only watch, in horror, as a dozen Daleks, all at once, shouted:

"EXTERMINATE!"


	5. Chapter 5

The light of a dozen Dalek guns blazed through the room, as Willow and Riley finally moved Buffy out the door and into a faded black corridor of the ship.

"No," Buffy croaked, because that was all she could manage. She tried, again, to struggle, and managed to move one of her arms — a half a centimeter, but still.

"Buffy, it's okay," Willow whispered. "It wasn't really him! It was just a hologram!"

"It's about time," came the Doctor's voice. "Any longer, and they would have noticed the holographic generator."

"She's heavy!" Willow protested. "You could give us a hand, you know!"

"Yes, well, I could do that," the Doctor said. "Or, instead, I could do something astoundingly clever." A high pitched buzzing sound came from Buffy's left, and she felt herself being lowered, on her back, onto something far more comfortable. She stared up at the dark, metallic black ceiling. From the bobbing up and down motion, Buffy guessed this thing she'd been lowered onto was something that floated.

A familiar head appeared in her line of vision.

"Doctor," Buffy tried to say, although, with the paralysis, it turned more into, "Duh!"

"You, Elizabeth Summers," the Doctor said to her, "may be the only individual I have ever met who has been left smiling after getting hit by a Dalek paralyzation ray."

If Buffy could move, she'd either smack him or hug him for that statement. Because, of course, he knew that the smile was because he'd arrived. He was just being his usual smug, arrogant self. And that was just so Doctor and — well, Buffy had really, really, really missed him!

Another alarm rang through the air, and the Doctor bolted out of her line of sight.

"Ah, I'd say that means they've just discovered the holographic generator," he said.

"So… run for our lives?" Willow asked.

"Couldn't have put it better myself!" the Doctor agreed.

The sound of pattering footsteps surrounded Buffy, as her friends pushed the little platform bobbing thingy down a number of corridors, through some dark metallic rooms, and into — a familiar, warm brightness. A high-vaulted golden mechanical ceiling that Buffy had seen before.

Buffy heard Riley's breath catch in his throat. "But, but it's—"

"Impossible! Bigger on the inside!" cried the Doctor. "Yes! I know! Now get in!"

"Alien," Riley finished, under his breath.

Buffy heard the doors of the TARDIS slam shut, and felt the TARDIS jerk into life, as the wheezing, groaning sound of the ship's engines surrounded her.

After a few minutes, the shaking stopped, and the ship fell quiet — or as quiet as it could be, with the Doctor always rambling on at a thousand miles an hour. Willow and Riley appeared in Buffy's line of sight. Buffy felt tears in her eyes as she saw Willow. She never thought she'd see Willow again.

The Doctor clapped his hands. "Now then," he said. "Since we have the escape all wrapped up, time to see what I can do about that paralyzation ray." Buffy heard a clang of a panel being opened, followed by the sound of an assortment of items being shuffled through.

Buffy kept staring at her friends, wishing she could move, wishing she could say something or just acknowledge how happy she was that they were still alive.

Willow took Buffy's hand. "Hey," she said.

Buffy tried to reply, but all that came out was, "Wih…."

"That's me," said Willow, with a grin. "Good reliable Willow, with the rescue and the punctual escape and stuff." She squeezed Buffy's hand.

"We were sure the Daleks had gotten you," Riley told Willow. "I don't think I've ever seen Buffy that angry."

"Oh, yeah, with the whole blowing up the mausoleum thing," said Willow. "See, it was weird, because I saw the explosion happening around me, except that none of it touched me, and I wasn't sure why, and this wind picked up from nowhere and the next thing I knew, I found myself in here." She looked back down at Buffy. "And Buffy, you probably should have told me a little bit more about the whole face-changing thing, because I had no idea where I was or who had gotten me, all I knew was that I'd been kidnapped by some crazy-looking guy, and then he told me he was the Devil and I got really worried about that. But then I thought about it and I realized, you don't usually get rescued from evil unstoppable robot-like killing machines by the Devil, and he told me that _this_ Devil always did that sort of thing, and then—"

"The Devil?" Riley asked, flicking up his eyes to the Doctor. "He's the Devil?"

"Yes, I am," said the Doctor, "but as long as you're not killing innocent people or trying to destroy the Earth, I'm really quite nice."

"He's not really the Devil," Willow told Riley. "Don't worry."

Buffy felt something stab into her arm, and pins and needles spread across her skin.

"Now, neither of you panic," said the Doctor. "I'm just going to help her metabolize the antitoxin faster." The Doctor bent down into her line of sight. "You trust me?"

"Yuh," was all Buffy could get out.

The Doctor gave her a soft smile, then placed his fingers on her temples. Something warm and fuzzy and nice rushed through her mind, and Buffy loved it when he did that, even though she sort of thought that she probably wasn't supposed to, but she always felt all happy and tingly afterwards, and sometimes, she wondered if she could ask him — although she wasn't really sure how — if he could just stay there for a bit longer, linger in her mind. Warm all her cold thoughts, illuminate the dark corners of her head. And she could still remember that one time, when she'd worked out how to crawl inside his mind, and how she hadn't wanted to leave it, because it felt so comfy and happy and wonderful. And… she really, really, shouldn't be having these thoughts, should she? Especially not while the Doctor was in her mind, and especially, especially, especially not while Riley was standing right next to her, and this Doctor had a girlfriend — or possibly a wife — and she had a boyfriend and this wasn't anything romantic anyways, it was just his way of helping her metabolize poisons out of her system.

(So why did Buffy always feel like it was something more than that?)

The Doctor drew away, and the warm fuzzy thing left her mind. He grinned at her. "There you are. Back to normal in a couple of minutes."

"What did you do?" Riley demanded.

"Well, technically speaking," said the Doctor, "I triggered a psychic connection in her neural synapses allowing the adhesion between one part of the brain and the other to work far faster than usual. Serum usually begins to work after about a half an hour. She'll have it processed in…" He checked a nonexistent watch on his wrist, "…oh, I'd say roughly two minutes, give or take a hundred and twenty seconds."

"And you are…?" Riley asked.

"Ah, yes, sorry, I'm the Doctor," said the Doctor, happily. Buffy could hear the bounce in his step as he said it. "And since you don't utterly despise me, yet, I'm guessing this is the first time we've met. Which means you don't know that I know you're Riley Finn. Military man, monster-fighter, and boyfriend to the lovely Miss Elizabeth Anne Summers!"

Riley gawped at him, confused.

"Oh, and don't worry about your friends in the Initiative," the Doctor told him. "All perfectly safe. I've sealed them inside the compound and blocked off their transmissions, so the Daleks won't detect them. Just don't try to reverse it, or you'll get them all killed."

"You know about the Initiative?" asked Willow.

"Of course I know about the Initiative," said the Doctor. "I know about everything. I'm incredibly clever. Initiative. Large group of boffins with no moral code wandering around capturing living creatures to turn into lab rats. Although, I am rather in favor of some of your less extreme ways of dealing with vampires. Very progressive. Completely misguided and ultimately useless, but still. Quite progressive."

Riley looked down at Buffy. "Did you tell everyone?"

"No, actually, _you_ told me," said the Doctor. "Not yet, I mean. In the future. Your future, my past. Time travel. Keeps things interesting." He clapped his hands. "Now then! Elizabeth! How're you doing?"

"Better," said Buffy. Then she realized she'd actually spoken. "Oh, my God, I can speak."

"Splendid!" the Doctor said. He gave her a hand, and helped her to sit up on the — black floating platform, it looked like. "I figured no Dalek paralyzation ray would be able to keep you out of action for long."

"Doctor," said Buffy, clutching at his arms to try to steady herself, as feeling returned to her body. "Why are there Daleks? You told me you got rid of them. You said they were extinct."

"Yes," said the Doctor. "They were. And now they're not. And no, I'm not going to explain why, except to say that it certainly has nothing whatsoever to do with me or Winston Churchill."

"Winston Churchill?" Willow asked.

"Nothing to do with him!" the Doctor insisted.

Buffy released the Doctor's arms, and climbed back to her feet. She already felt far stronger than before, and she could still feel the magic-space-thing the Doctor had given her flowing through her blood stream, building her back up to her usual strength.

Riley gave Buffy a helping hand, and pulled her closer to him. "That guy?" he asked, quietly, nodding at the Doctor. " _That guy_ is your weapon?"

Buffy smiled. "Yep."

The Doctor snapped his head around. "I'm your what?" he asked Buffy.

The smile fell off Buffy's face. "Nothing," she said, pulling away from Riley.

"Did you just call me your weapon?" the Doctor asked.

"I… might have," Buffy admitted. "Just… you know. In passing."

The Doctor gaped at her. "I'm your weapon?"

"Well, I'm _your_ weapon!" Buffy said. "Why can't you be mine, too? I think it's sweet."

The Doctor shook his head, in awe. "You might be the only person I know who could take an insult from my worst enemy and consider it a compliment," said the Doctor. "Or at least, you're the only one I actually like."

Riley edged closer to Willow. "Okay, he's her weapon, and she's his weapon," he said, in a low voice. "I'm starting to get the feeling there's something else going on, here."

"Oh, trust me, it's a really bad idea to get between Buffy and the Doctor," said Willow, in her normal, loud, chirpy voice. "They sort of have this… really weird and confusing friendship."

"Weird and confusing how?" asked Riley. He looked between Buffy and the Doctor. "Oh, wait. You're not… are you her ex?"

Buffy and the Doctor looked at each other, for about a second too long. Then:

"Certainly not!" the Doctor said.

"No way, nu-uh," Buffy agreed, at the same time.

"Although, I did used to be enemies with her ex-boyfriend," said the Doctor. "Quite bitter enemies. Since round about 1898, actually. Hundred years. Course, I took the short route. Roughly fifty Earth years for me, give or take a few centuries."

"Fifty years give or take what?" Riley asked.

"I forgot to ask," said Buffy to the Doctor. "When are you?"

"Ah, just dropped Amy and Rory off on…," he patted his jacket pocket, and drew out a crumpled bit of paper. He uncrumpled it, and squinted. "Avrolancrom Minor? That can't be right."

"And Amy and Rory, at this point, are…?" Buffy asked.

"Oh, newlyweds," said the Doctor. "Lovely wedding. Splendid couple. Now happily married, and on their honeymoon." He folded the paper, carefully, and tucked it back into his pocket. "Although, if they wish to continue to remain happily married, they should probably get off that planet. I'm not entirely sure of the political situation on Avrolancrom Minor in the time period I dropped them."

"You just dumped your friends on some planet and ran off?" Willow asked.

"When I receive a message on the psychic paper saying, 'Help, the Daleks have just invaded Sunnydale', my top priority is not holiday planning," the Doctor said. "But enough of that. What I want to know is why haven't the Daleks killed you, yet?"

Riley and Willow looked at one another.

"Huh?" asked Willow.

"No, not you," said the Doctor, brushing past her. "They were perfectly fine killing you. But you, Riley — can I just call you Riley? Riley. Why did they spare you?" He flipped out his sonic screwdriver, and scanned it across Riley.

"Hostage situation," said Riley. "They were using me to ensure that Buffy cooperated."

"Daleks don't take hostages," the Doctor said, checking the readings on the sonic. "Not under normal circumstances." He tucked the sonic back into his pocket, and raced towards the central console, again. "And something else is not-normal about this situation. The Daleks have been on Earth a good thirty minutes, now, and their death count hasn't even reached the hundreds, yet."

"That's… a good thing, right?" Buffy asked.

"With Daleks, there's no such thing as a good thing," said the Doctor, flipping some switches. "If they're not exterminating people, it means they're doing something worse." He stopped, then his eyes snapped to Buffy. "You," he said. "They wanted you."

"Yeah," said Buffy.

"Why?"

Buffy shrugged. "Something with my brain."

"Brain extraction," Riley clarified.

"And that doesn't make sense, either," the Doctor said, and started pacing around the central console. "That means the Daleks are looking for information. But no information you have could possibly be of any interest to them."

Buffy folded her arms. "Um, Slayer here," she said. "Remember? Super fighting skills? That kind of thing?"

The Doctor mimed punching the air. "Fighting skills?"

Buffy imitated the mime, although more accurately. "Yep."

The Doctor waved his hands. "No hands."

Buffy frowned. That was actually a good point. Pretty much everything she knew about fighting would be worthless to someone without hands. And pretty much everything she knew about demons and vampires was about how to fight them. Other than that, she didn't really know that much that would be important to Daleks. Except…

"I do know stuff about _you_ ," Buffy told the Doctor.


	6. Chapter 6

The Doctor froze. "Ah."

"And they don't like you," said Buffy.

"No, they don't."

"You mean like the stuff you wrote down in the notebook?" Willow asked Buffy. "That's what the Daleks were looking for?"

"Notebook?" the Doctor said, his head snapping over to Willow. "What notebook?"

Willow caught Buffy's stare, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ears. "The… um… notebook I wasn't supposed to tell you about, I guess," said Willow. She gave Buffy a sheepish grin. "Sorry?"

"Oh, this would be the famous red notebook I keep hearing about!" the Doctor cried. "I always wondered what it was!"

"It's nothing," said Buffy. "It's not important."

"Why? Have you been taking notes on me?" the Doctor asked Buffy, slightly bemused. He strode towards Willow, and, noticing the red, spiral bound notebook sticking out from beneath her jacket, snatched it from her.

Buffy tried to intersect him, grab the notebook out of his hands, but he was too fast, and darted out of the way.

"It's not what you think," Buffy warned him, as he opened it up. "It's…"

The smile fell off the Doctor's face, as he flipped through its pages. "The future," he realized. "Everything I've ever mentioned to you about the immediate future of this planet."

Buffy looked down at her feet, but said nothing.

The Doctor kept flipping through page after page, his face getting angrier and angrier with every word he read. "The GPS trying to kill people!" Flip. "Henry van Statten in Utah!" Flip. "Torchwood!" Flip. "Stone statues at Wester Drumlins!"

Buffy scuffed her shoes along the ground.

The Doctor looked up at her, his eyes dark and stormy. "Do you realize what you've done?" he demanded. He shook the open notebook at Buffy. "This is incredibly dangerous, Elizabeth! Information like this — if you acted on any of it, if you changed any of these events, you could completely destabilize all of time and space! I thought you had more sense than this! I thought you'd know better than to use knowledge from a time traveler to further your own personal—"

"It's not for me!" Buffy shouted at him.

The Doctor froze, the notebook lying, open, in his hands.

Buffy walked towards him, so that she was right in front of him, and flipped a few pages. "It's not for me," she said, softly. "Because of that."

The Doctor dropped his eyes down to the page, where Buffy had written, in large letters, at the top:

_I'm now almost completely sure that the Doctor has seen me die or seen me dead. And I mean dead for good._

Below it, she had listed, in bullet point format, all the evidence she'd gathered so far to confirm this theory. From the way that the Doctor sometimes looked at her — that look of such terrible loss and pain in his eyes — to the fact that he tried to visit her in order until shortly after Donna left. And all the other little hints he'd dropped, all the little things that had given it away. Things the Doctor hadn't even noticed he was doing. Things the Doctor would never have done, if he'd realized that she understood their meaning. But Buffy was clever — very clever — and she'd worked it out. Pieced together the evidence.

"That's why," Buffy said, so softly that the Doctor could barely hear. "It's for… after. For them." She glanced over at Riley and Willow, then looked back to the Doctor. "You'll be off, saving the world somewhere far away, and they'll need… something to keep them safe." Buffy put her hand on the notebook. "This will."

The Doctor flipped back through the notebook, more carefully. He noticed exactly what Buffy had written, and, more importantly, what she hadn't. He noticed the pages on all the different creatures that he'd mentioned to Buffy — their weaknesses, the best ways to hide from them. The pages of hints about survival tips for future disasters. Yes, this notebook was a collection of clues he'd dropped, but not _all_ of them. She had written every detail he'd given her about the danger, every detail he'd dropped about how to hide from it or avoid it, but nothing about how he'd ultimately defeated it. Nothing that could lead her friends to interfere in any massive way.

It wasn't a guidebook on how to change the future, the Doctor realized. It was a guidebook on how to avoid getting killed in the future.

The Doctor closed the notebook, and handed it back to Buffy.

"Keep it safe," he said.

"Yeah," said Buffy, hugging it to her chest. "Thanks."

They stayed there, a moment longer, just looking at one another, blue eyes meeting green, that familiar trust resonating between them, once more. The trust and love and friendship that kept drawing them together, over and over again, throughout both their personal timelines.

The Doctor blinked, and the connection was broken. He looked around at the others, and jumped back into action. "Right!" he said. "So. Situation. There are Daleks in Sunnydale, but they're not acting like Daleks. Not attacking, not killing, just gathering. Gathering people, gathering information, that sort of thing. And what sort of enemy arrives in Sunnydale, keeps a low profile, and starts collecting things?"

"Well, enemies like Spike and stuff," said Willow. "You know, when he was trying to get the Gem of Amara."

"And those crazy demon guys who were trying to collect all those amulets to perform the Sacrifice of Three," said Riley.

"Basically everyone who's ever tried to steal any lost, legendary object," said Buffy.

"Exactly!" cried the Doctor. "And that might be a bit of a problem, because the thing about Sunnydale is that nearly every mystical magical lost legendary object on Earth is buried here. Except, of course, for the thousands of others that aren't, but the Daleks aren't looking for those, so they clearly don't count." He squeezed his forehead in concentration, as he resumed his pacing. "The question is, which object would they be looking for?"

Riley made his way over to Buffy. "So. You and him. You aren't…?"

"We're friends," said Buffy. "Just friends. No need to get jealous. It can't go any further than that. He's…." She stopped herself.

"Alien," said Riley.

"No!" Buffy protested. "Not alien! He's just…." She faltered for a good lie, then gave up. "Okay, yeah, he's alien. But no telling!"

"Who would I…?" Riley paused. "Oh." He clasped his hands behind his back, and fixed his eyes on the Doctor.

Buffy could practically hear the cogs working in his head. She knew what Riley was thinking. If he was jealous of the Doctor, the best way to get rid of the alien would be to report him to the Initiative, so they could dig into his brain and… Buffy needed to stop Riley from going there with that train of thought. So she pulled him forwards, and gave him the most passionate kiss she could.

In the background, the Doctor kept nattering on about vineyards and crypts and amulets and who knows what else. Willow didn't seem to be paying any attention to him, either, but instead watched Buffy and Riley, silently rooting them on. Buffy tried to devote her full attention to Riley, but she still noticed when the Doctor stopped rambling.

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Yes, sorry to cut in, but could we save the snogging for when the world and quite possibly the universe is not in immediate danger? Although, come to think of it, given Elizabeth's track record, that would probably mean she'd never get to snog anyone, and that would be a bit rubbish, wouldn't it?" He clapped his hands. "So! On second thought. Snog away. No better time for it."

As if on cue, the TARDIS shook, violently, causing Buffy and Riley to crash to the floor. A gong sound echoed through the vast chamber of the TARDIS console room. Buffy peeled herself off Riley and the floor, and brushed her hair out of her eyes. Willow clung to the railing, holding on for dear life. The Doctor rushed around the console, flicking buttons and pulling levers. The expression on his face did not inspire confidence.

He pulled the monitor forwards, and squinted at it.

"No," he said. "No!" He hit the monitor. "Stop it! Why are you doing that?"

Buffy ran forwards, to try to figure out what was going on.

"That doesn't make sense," the Doctor continued. "And it has to make sense. Everything the Daleks do makes sense. A very twisted and completely amoral sort of sense, but clean, straight, logical sense. So why? What could the Daleks possibly want in there?"

"In where?" asked Buffy. She looked at the monitor, over the Doctor's shoulder, but it was all weird symbols she didn't understand. "What happened?"

The Doctor looked over his shoulder at Buffy. "The Daleks," he said, "have just opened the Hellmouth."


	7. Chapter 7

Buffy gaped at the Doctor. "How?" she demanded. "They… they don't even have hands! You can't just open the Hellmouth without, you know, amulets and charms and blood rituals and…"

"One thing about Daleks," said the Doctor. "They're clever. Incredibly clever. Never underestimate them. They're always working towards a plan, and it's always a particularly nasty one. If they aren't exterminating people, it's because they're using them for something worse."

Buffy felt her stomach turn over. "They sacrificed the people they didn't kill so they could open the Hellmouth?"

"Almost certainly," the Doctor agreed. He looked back at the monitor, and hit it on its side. Then he hit it again.

"So, that's the Daleks' main objective," said Riley. "To end the world."

"If the Daleks had wanted to end the world, they'd have done it by now," said the Doctor. "No, if they're opening the Hellmouth, it's because they need something inside. The question is, what?"

"Monsters?" Willow suggested. "Or, wait, Giles said something about how the Hellmouth had some sort of energy attached to it. Maybe they're trying to get that?"

"Could be," the Doctor said. He hit the monitor again, harder, then winced, and shook out his hand. He turned to Buffy. "Elizabeth. You're stronger than I am. Hit this for me."

Buffy crossed her arms. Yeah, that wasn't happening. "I'm not getting between you and your ship," she said. She paused. "Again." She might not understand the Doctor's relationship with his ship, but Buffy was now fairly sure that _she_ had no place in it. "Why do you keep hitting that monitor thingy, anyways?"

"Because these readings make no sense!" the Doctor cried. "The Daleks have opened the Hellmouth; that much is obvious. But if you look at this data, it seems to indicate a regressive synchronous chronon loop feeding back and forth through the first two seconds after it opened, which is absolutely and completely mad, and doesn't serve any—"

"In English?" Buffy demanded.

"The Daleks opened the Hellmouth," said the Doctor, "and then they opened it again. While it was already open."

Willow, Riley, and Buffy all looked at one another.

"You're right," said Willow. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Exactly! No sense whatsoever. Based on these readings, it's almost as if…" The Doctor released the monitor, and stepped away from it. "No," he breathed.

"You know it's bad," said Buffy, "when 'they just opened the Hellmouth' is the good news."

The Doctor flew at the central console, frantically pressing buttons and pulling levers. The TARDIS juddered into life, the wheezing sound echoing through the chamber.

"Hold onto something!" the Doctor shouted, clinging to the central console.

Buffy grabbed the other side of the console, just as the TARDIS jolted, violently, and sparks began to fly through the air. The console grew hot underneath the palms of Buffy's hands, and as it burned her skin, she let go. Another fierce jolt from the TARDIS sent her crashing to the floor.

"What's going on?" she shouted over the noise.

"We're crossing the threshold of the Hellmouth!" the Doctor called back.

"Are you insane?" Willow cried.

"Of course I'm insane!" the Doctor responded. "I'm a madman with a box. What did you expect?"

One final shake of the TARDIS, and suddenly, it all stopped. The console pinged. A dense silence settled around them.

Buffy climbed to her feet, as the Doctor raced towards the door, pushing past Riley and Willow. He flung open the double doors of the TARDIS, the damp smell of cave flooding into the room, then bolted outside. Buffy chased after him. If this was the Hellmouth, there would be all sorts of monsters and evil mean things out there, and the Doctor didn't stand a chance against them on his own.

She emerged in a dank, empty cavern, lit with an eerie red ambiance that seemed to resonate through the stone walls themselves. She squinted, but there was nothing there. Nothing and no one. The Hellmouth was empty.

"Gone!" the Doctor shouted. He threw his hands up over his head as he looked about. "Completely gone!" He kicked the ground with his boot, and dirt flew up in front of his face. "I knew there was something funny when they didn't exterminate me on the spot. They were stalling me!"

From behind her, Buffy heard the soft shuffle of footsteps. She turned, and spotted Willow and Riley coming out of the TARDIS. They both looked just as puzzled as Buffy felt.

"I thought you said this place was full of monsters," Riley said.

"It is," Willow confirmed. "I mean, usually." Her eyes widened. "You don't think that means they're all out on the surface, terrorizing—"

"This," the Doctor cut in, "isn't exactly the Hellmouth. Well, sort of. You see, it is the Hellmouth. And it isn't."

"Huh?" asked Buffy.

"It's more like… a subsection of the Hellmouth — a very small fold of a pocket dimension kept exactly one half second out of phase with normal reality," said the Doctor, crouching down towards the floor, and staring at the dirt beneath their feet. "Time Lords used to use these to store artifacts of enormous energy and power. All of which means whatever used to be here wasn't a monster." He scooped up the dirt, examining it more closely as it drained through his fingers. "It was something worse."

"Like what?" Buffy asked.

"Something!" the Doctor said, standing up and brushing off his hands. "Anything! I don't know. Why do you always ask me the hard questions?"

"But it's not good?" asked Willow.

"Of course it's not good," said the Doctor. "The Daleks want it. Anything the Daleks want is not good."

"But… if it wasn't a monster they wanted, then why did they want my brain?" Buffy asked. "I mean, I'm Miss Monster-Fighter. What else would they need me for?"

The Doctor's shoulders slumped. "I'm very sorry," he said to Buffy. "But I don't think they needed you at all. I believe you were the distraction."

Buffy stared at him.

"What do you mean, she was the distraction?" asked Riley.

"Well, whenever the Daleks invade Earth, I'm bound to come along and foil their plans," said the Doctor. "I've been doing it so long, they've learned to predict it. Hence, Elizabeth! If I was busy rescuing her, they could swoop right in and retrieved this — whatever-it-is — before I worked out what they were doing." He looked over at Buffy. "You see? That's why they didn't kill you. They were trying to make sure you got me here."

"But why would they want you here?" Buffy asked. "Wouldn't they want you far away from here? If they didn't think that anyone could call you—"

"They knew you could," the Doctor told her. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "If only I knew what it was they'd stolen."

"Hey, guys! Over here," Willow called, from the far end of the cavern. She shone a small penlight over at them, to attract their attention, then directed the beam back at the wall.

The group all ran over to Willow.

She blew at the symbols carved into the red rock face of the cavern, trying to remove the layers of dust. "I can't read it," she said. "But it's definitely demonic."

Buffy frowned. She thought the TARDIS was supposed to translate this kind of thing for them. Unless…. Oh. Oh. Hang on. If the Time Lords had been the ones to create this little dimensional fold thingy, and the TARDIS wouldn't translate the script... She turned to the Doctor. "It's _your_ language, isn't it?"

"What does it say?" Willow asked him.

The Doctor stepped back. "The Fountain…" he breathed.

"And that's… the Fountain of Youth?" asked Riley.

"Of course not!" the Doctor insisted. "Fountain of Youth? Why would the Daleks want the Fountain of Youth? No, this is worse. Far, far worse than I ever thought."

"Why?" Buffy asked. "What did the Daleks take?"

"Something impossible," said the Doctor. "Something that doesn't exist. Couldn't exist! It's a myth, a legend, a fairy story! It couldn't possibly…" He ran his hand through his hair. Then he froze. "Except it all makes sense," he breathed.

"What does?" Buffy asked.

"Everything!" the Doctor cried. He swiveled around, and ran back towards the TARDIS.

"It doesn't make sense to us," Willow complained, as she, Buffy, and Riley all trudged after him.

The moment they stepped inside the TARDIS, the doors flew shut, and the TARDIS engines wheezed into life.

"Wait for us to find something to grab onto!" Buffy shouted at the Doctor.

"No time," the Doctor replied, flying around the central console. "We have one very bad thing out in the universe, one very bad thing still happening here on Earth, and a whole bunch of very bad things who have caused the bad thing on Earth and are trying to use the bad thing out in the universe."

"What?" Willow asked.

"That's Doctor-speak for, 'we're screwed'," Buffy translated.

The TARDIS shook, sparks flew from the central console, and Buffy clung to the railing. The Doctor tried to wave away the smoke, and pulled another lever. The TARDIS bucked, then stilled, and gave a gentle ping.

The Doctor rushed towards the doors, and flung them open. Buffy looked to the others, then followed the Doctor outside.

Buffy stopped when she noticed where they had landed. Okay, she hadn't expected that. The small courtyard with its round, double-decker fountain in the middle, leaves still floating upon the surface of the water. The familiar heavy wooden door in front of her, unlocked as usual, swinging open to reveal a familiar, worried-looking face.

"Buffy!" Giles cried, rushing towards her. "We haven't any time to lose. The Hellmouth has been opened, the town is in complete chaos, and Lord only knows where those horrid little robotic pepper-pots have gone."

"Yeah," said Buffy. "I… um…" She glanced back over her shoulder, and noticed that the Doctor had already begun heading back to the TARDIS. Oh, so that was what he was doing. He was ditching them. Leaving Buffy and her friends somewhere safe while he went off into danger, on his own.

And, apparently, Hell on Earth was considered "somewhere safe".

Buffy had a choice. She could either fulfill her destiny — be the Slayer, close the Hellmouth, et cetera, et cetera — or do what she thought was right — save the Earth and the universe from something even worse.

As she watched the Doctor slip inside the TARDIS, she knew what she had to do.

Buffy turned to Willow. "You… remember what we did before, right?" she asked. "Last time the Hellmouth opened?"

"Well, yeah," said Willow. "But, I mean, that wasn't..."

But Buffy didn't have time to argue. She could already hear the TARDIS engines roaring into life, and she knew what she had to do. She handed the notebook back to Willow, then sprinted towards the TARDIS. She threw open the doors and leapt inside, just as the TARDIS disappeared.


	8. Chapter 8

The Doctor looked up from where he was working at the central console. "Elizabeth?"

"Okay, seriously, what's going on?" Buffy demanded. She stalked towards him, hands crossed.

"No, no, no, no. You shouldn't be here," said the Doctor. "That's why I dropped you off. You should be back on Earth, closing the Hellmouth. That's your—"

"Job," Buffy finished for him. "Destiny. I know. I don't care. What's going on?"

The Doctor started flipping switches and pulling levers. "It doesn't matter, because I'm sending you back," he said. "You shouldn't be here. You shouldn't be anywhere I'm going. It's not—"

Buffy grabbed the Doctor by the collar of his jacket, and yanked him away from the controls, as his next word turned into a startled yelp of "—safe!"

Buffy loved it when she was stronger than him.

"You're not taking me anywhere," said Buffy, releasing the Doctor on his feet a good ways away from the central console, "until you tell me what's going on."

The Doctor leaned in close. "Elizabeth, listen to me," he said, very quietly. "The Earth is in danger. Terrible, horrible danger. You have to stay behind and save it."

"While you go off somewhere that makes Hell on Earth look safe?" Buffy asked.

"Yes."

"And this Fountain thing that the Daleks stole," Buffy continued. "If it gets used, would it be worse than what's happening back on Earth? Would it be worse than the Hellmouth opening?"

The Doctor said nothing for a few seconds. "Yes," he admitted.

Buffy nodded. "Then I'm in the right place."

"No, you're not," insisted the Doctor, running back towards the central console. "Believe me, Buffy, I'm perfectly capable of handling this on my—"

"You called me Buffy," said Buffy.

The Doctor froze, his hand on a lever. "No, I didn't."

"Yeah, you did," said Buffy. "And I can always tell when you're lying when you call me Buffy."

The Doctor didn't move.

"Which means that you _aren't_ sure you can handle it by yourself," Buffy continued. "Which means I'm in the right place." She gave him a pointed stare. "Now. Fountain thing. Explain."

The Doctor dropped his hand, and leaned over the console. "It's called the Fountain of Kulkmattoll," he told her. "And it shouldn't even exist. It was just a story I heard back when I was a boy. The Fountain was supposed to be an artifact from the Dark Times — one of the final remnants of the Great Vampires."

"Vampires!" Buffy said. "See? I'm good with vampires. Aren't you glad you kept me around?"

"Only you've never seen a real vampire," the Doctor told her. "Every vampire you've run across has been a hybrid. Part human, part vampire. The Great Vampires — they were the real thing. Enormous, green-gray creatures who fed off life force energy. A single Great Vampire could drain the life out of a planet in a matter of hours."

"Oh," said Buffy. "And these Great Vampire thingies wouldn't, like, want their weapon back or anything, right?"

The Doctor shook his head. "They're long gone," he said. "My people destroyed them, billions of years ago. It was one of the things that stuck, even after the War. No more Great Vampires." The Doctor walked up to Buffy. "But you see, that's why the Daleks wanted your brain. Vampire Slayer. Even if you didn't provide a distraction, they hoped" — tapping the sonic against the side of her head — "your brain might hold the secrets of the Great Vampires."

"But I don't know anything about—"

"But they thought you did," said the Doctor.

"And this Fountain of Kulk-my-gold—"

"Kulkmattoll."

"—was something the Great Vampires invented?" Buffy guessed.

"Supposedly, it was a storage tank for life force energy," the Doctor explained. "The Fountain would drain planets dry, then keep the energy ready and waiting for the Great Vampires to feed off at their own convenience."

Buffy's eyes went wide. "Planets?" she asked. "You mean, not just the people on the planets, but the planets themselves?"

"Yes."

"The Daleks are trying to vampire-kill planets?"

"Exactly."

Buffy swore. Then she swore louder, as a horrible idea occurred to her. "Doctor, I just left all my friends on Earth. If the Daleks—"

"Already left this time and place," the Doctor told her. "They only spared the Earth to get rid of me. They were hoping I'd stay behind to save the Earth while they went off to suck the life out of countless worlds." The Doctor grabbed Buffy by the upper arms. "Don't you see? That's why I left you behind. You can save the Earth, but you can't stop the Daleks. I can. I have to."

Buffy looked into his eyes, those panicked, green eyes. She didn't move, didn't nod or shake her head or anything, just looked at him.

"I'm not going back," Buffy told him.

The Doctor released her. "Yes, you are," he said, as he headed back to the central console, and started pressing buttons and flipping switches.

"My friends can close the Hellmouth," said Buffy. "They've done it before. They don't need my help. You do."

"I've defeated the Daleks before," the Doctor told her. "Many, many times. I can do it again."

"And they never make you upset enough that you make terrible mistakes, right?" Buffy asked. "Like — oh, I don't know — accidentally bringing them back into existence with Winston Churchill?"

The Doctor didn't say anything.

"Come on, Doctor, I'm not just some normal human girl you have to protect," said Buffy. "My job is fighting unstoppable evil killy things. I'm good at this." She gave a small shrug. "And besides, you know I can do it. Other-me did."

The Doctor snapped his eyes up to her. "You really have been taking notes."

"Other-me met you at Hemery High School," Buffy said, "when a bunch of Daleks tried to destroy the world. She saved your life. And I'm guessing she didn't know nearly as much as I do about evil creatures."

The Doctor frowned. Then went back to entering the coordinates on the TARDIS console.

"And I've got other good things about me, too," Buffy added. "Like, Riley says I'm good at being nosy and asking questions. So… here's a question! Why do the Daleks want to suck the life out of planets in the first place? You said that they could split apart the Earth in two seconds if they wanted to — and that was without the Fountain of Kulkmattoll. So why go through the trouble of distracting you, opening the Hellmouth, and stealing it?"

The Doctor froze, his hand hovering over a knob on the console. "That's a good question," he said. He straightened. "A very good question." He began walking towards Buffy, his face bent in an inquisitive frown. "The Daleks use temporal energy to survive. Life force energy would be entirely useless to them. Which means, if they're using the Fountain, they want the life force energy for something else. Something worse."

"Something worse?" Buffy exclaimed. "Something _worse_ than draining the life out of an entire planet? What could possibly be _worse_ than destroying a whole planet at once?"

The Doctor's face went blank. He turned back to the central console. "Lots of things," he muttered, without looking at her.

Buffy realized how that must have sounded. "No, I… I didn't mean…"

"Destroying the universe, for one," the Doctor went on, in a louder voice, ignoring Buffy's attempts to take back her previous statement, "destroying all of time, for another, ripping apart the multiverse for a third — and they've tried to do all those things at least once. Name any truly terrible bad thing you can think of, and I'll tell you a time when the Daleks tried to do it."

"Okay, I stand corrected," said Buffy. "Tons of things worse than destroying a planet. So what are they doing this time?"

"Not a clue. But whatever the Daleks are planning," said the Doctor, "we have to stop it. And fast."

Buffy felt a small smile creep up her face. "We?"

The Doctor looked up at her. "I… well, if you're volunteering."

"Soulless creatures, vampires, and preventing apocalypses," Buffy mused. "That sounds right up my alley."

The Doctor's face lit up in a dazzling smile. And Buffy knew she'd made the right choice.


	9. Chapter 9

The Doctor kicked the central console, then winced. "Ouch!" He turned to Buffy. "Elizabeth. Kick that."

"For the last time, I'm not kicking your time machine," said Buffy. "What's wrong?"

"The Daleks have set up a temporal smokescreen," the Doctor told her, slumping with his back against the railing. "Which means I can't trace them. They're about to destroy an entire planet, and I have no idea where or when!"

Buffy frowned. "Well, I don't know about outer space," she said, "but back in Sunnydale, when we're trying to find a vamp, we look at the police reports for — you know. Bite marks."

"Bite marks," the Doctor scoffed. Then he blinked. "Bite marks," he repeated, standing up a little straighter. His eyes lit up. "Bite marks!" he shouted, as he darted back over to the central console, madly adjusting the switches and levers.

He peered back at the monitor. Information zoomed across the screen, too fast for Buffy to read. The Doctor gave a triumphant, "Aha!", tapped a few things on the central console, threw a lever, and the TARDIS shook as the engines wheezed into life.

"What did you find?" Buffy shouted over the roar of the engines.

"Numerous police reports," the Doctor shouted back, "all coming from the 39th century. Planets drained of their life force, no apparent cause."

"Planets? Plural? As in more than one?" Buffy shouted.

The Doctor hesitated. "Possibly." He paused, then admitted, "Yes."

"How many?"

The TARDIS landed with a ping. The Doctor looked over at Buffy, and in an instant, Buffy knew he wouldn't answer. He'd never answer. Because she could tell from the sorrow in his face that the answer wasn't something she'd like.

So they'd been too late. All those planets had already been drained, and if they had just acted faster…

Hang on.

"This is a time machine!" Buffy said. "We could go back to these dates, and stop the Daleks before they start."

"We can't," said the Doctor.

"But we—"

"We're already a part of the series of events," said the Doctor. "We can't go back and change them. Not now. Those planets are gone." He stared at the monitor. "Nothing in the universe could bring them back."

Buffy felt the weight of those words flood over her, like a thousand tons of water crushing every bone in her body. She hugged her arms, and looked away. All those people, all those worlds — each one like Earth. And they'd been destroyed. Drained. A vampire attack on a planetary scale. Buffy shook herself. She couldn't think about this. She had to get herself together, and come up with a plan.

"We've got to figure out what the Daleks are using the energy to do," said Buffy. "Whatever it was, you said it was worse than this. If we want this to stop, we have to figure out where they are, what they're up to, and how to stop them."

The Doctor said nothing.

"Then, we can march right in," said Buffy, "and do something really, really smart that they're not expecting, and…" She realized that the Doctor wasn't paying any attention. He just stood, slouched over the console, his eyes staring, vacantly, ahead.

Buffy strode over to him, and snapped her fingers in front of his eyes. "Hello? Doctor? Wake up! Daleks to get rid of, remember?"

"I can't," the Doctor admitted.

"You… huh?"

He looked up at her. "Elizabeth, I can't stop them. By the time I find them, it's going to be too late. With the amount of life force they've gathered already… with this much energy…" He shook his head.

"But… you said you already found them," said Buffy. "In the 39th century."

"All across the universe in the 39th century!" the Doctor told her. He flipped a red-handled lever on the console, and the monitor flickered with a superimposed alien script. "These planets are spread out across the entire universe, over the entire century. Imagine, having to search the infinity of space that is the universe, and over a period of a hundred years! We would never find them, Elizabeth. We could look for the rest of our lives and never, ever find them."

"So, okay, then we go back to the scene of the crime," said Buffy. "Pick up clues."

"We're at the scene of the crime," said the Doctor.

He pressed a button at the bottom of the monitor, and swiveled it towards Buffy. There, on the screen, Buffy could see the burnt out husk of a dead planet.

"Melcarissa Majoria," said the Doctor. "Once known for having the best crepe suzettes in the cosmos. Now… gone." He glanced back at her. "Scene of the crime. And nothing. Not a clue. Not a trace. Nothing at all."

Buffy urged herself to think positive. She didn't know how to deal with outer-spacey things, but she knew how to deal with Sunnydale. So find the nearest comparable situation. Okay. These Daleks were smart, and they'd disappeared. Who was the smartest person she knew who liked to disappear? That was easy — the Doctor. So, when Buffy was looking for the Doctor around Sunnydale, because he'd run off without a trace, what did she do? She tried to figure out what his plan was, and used that to work out where he'd gone.

"What would the Daleks be using the life force energy to do?" Buffy asked. "If we work that out, maybe we can work out where they are."

The Doctor didn't answer her, just went back to the TARDIS central console, fiddling with some knobs. But Buffy could tell, from the way his shoulders slumped, that he'd already worked it out.

"It's bad, isn't it?" Buffy asked. "You've got your 'something worse' face on again."

"Life force energy can only be used for a limited number of things," the Doctor explained. "It can sustain certain parasitic life forms like vampires, in some cases it can imbue the essence of life into a corpse, and" — looking up at Buffy — "it can alter genetic code on a massive scale."

"Alter genetic code?" Buffy asked. "You don't think…?"

"The Daleks are weak," the Doctor told her. "They're desperate. And, at the moment, their numbers are small. Use the Fountain, and they can turn any species in the universe into Daleks. An instant army of any size." He shook his head. "No! No! No! But that doesn't make sense, either! Daleks are the supreme beings! They'd never sully their own genetic code by transforming one of an inferior species. The last time they did that, they went mad and tried to destroy the…"

The Doctor trailed off, staring at a blinking mauve light on the central console. Buffy noticed it, too.

"What's that mean?" Buffy asked him.

"They're signaling me," the Doctor said.

"Who? The Daleks?"

"Yes."

"That's great!" said Buffy. "Then you know where they are!"

"Because they want me to know where they are," said the Doctor. "They need me for something."

Buffy felt her heart sink. "Don't tell me," she said. "It's something worse."

"With the Daleks, it's always something worse," said the Doctor. He flipped a few switches, and then pulled a lever, and the TARDIS engines ground into life.

"Okay, so what are we going to do?" Buffy asked.

"I'm going to go onto their ship," the Doctor told her, "and let them capture me."

"What?" Buffy cried. "You said they wanted you for something bad! And you're not going to do something bad. Which means that you're going to say no, and then they're going to be all exterminatey and—"

"It's the only chance I have to stop them," said the Doctor. "If I let this go, if I don't respond to their signal, I might never be able to find them again."

"Yeah, but you don't have to turn yourself in!" Buffy said. "You could just land somewhere out of the way and then sneak around and—"

"The moment I set foot on that ship, they'll know," said the Doctor. "The Daleks want me. That means they'll be expecting me. Cameras and monitors and all sorts of sensors. They'll probably have a welcoming party to meet me wherever I land."

"Oh," said Buffy.

He spun around the console, in a sudden burst of energy. "Now, here's how this is going to work. I'm going to go out and face the Daleks, while you stay in the TARDIS and — no arguing! — keep out of trouble."

Buffy gave a small laugh. "Yeah, because that's going to happen," she said.

"The Daleks want me for something," the Doctor told her. "That means they'll keep me alive, at least for a while. But they don't need you. If you're with me when I leave the TARDIS, you're as good as dead."

"I'm not just going to stay in here twiddling my thumbs!" Buffy protested.

The Doctor came up to her, a smile dancing across his lips. "Of course not," he said, taking her hands in his and wrapping them around the sonic, "because I've got a job for you."


	10. Chapter 10

The Doctor stepped outside of the TARDIS, carefully closing the door behind him. Twelve Daleks hovered nearby, their gun-barrels twitching and their eyestalks all focused on him.

"You rang?" the Doctor asked.

"YOU ARE THE DOCTOR!" one of the Daleks cried. "YOU ARE A PRISONER OF THE DALEKS!"

"Yes, I was rather expecting that," said the Doctor. "Well, go on. Aren't you going to add in that next bit, the one about your wanting to exterminate me?"

"THE DOCTOR WILL OBEY," the Dalek commanded.

"The Doctor will obey?" the Doctor asked. "I've been downgraded from 'exterminate on sight' to 'you will obey'?"

"YOU WILL OBEY THE DALEKS!" the first Dalek shouted. "OR YOU WILL BE EXTERMIN—"

"Oh, shut it," the Doctor said. "If you'd wanted to exterminate me, you'd have done it the moment I left the TARDIS. Now. You brought me here for a reason, and I want to know why." He leaned in closer, staring straight into the Dalek's blue eyestalk, and the Dalek flinched backwards. "What are you up to?"

"ALERT! ALERT!" the Dalek shrieked. "THE DOCTOR WILL CEASE MOVEMENT! THE DOCTOR WILL CEASE!"

"You've butchered entire planets," the Doctor growled. "You've drained them of their life force. That isn't something I approve of. That isn't something I like." His voice raised to a shout, as he demanded: "So I'd like to know why!"

"THE DOCTOR WILL CEASE TALKING!" another Dalek commanded.

The Doctor stepped back, with a laugh. "Cease talking?" he asked. "You have files and files of data on me. Am I likely to cease talking? Have I ever ceased talking?"

Another group of Daleks poured out of a nearby sliding door. "THE DOCTOR WILL FOLLOW," they commanded.

"Will I, then?" the Doctor asked. He looked back at the Dalek he'd stared down before. "I thought you told me to cease movement."

"MOVE!" the Daleks around him shouted, in unison. "MOVE, OR YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"

The Doctor clasped his hands behind his back. "Well, if you put it that way," said the Doctor, "I'd be delighted to move." And without a moment of hesitation, he followed the Daleks out the door.

* * *

An enormous, high-vaulted room with black metal walls and grated metal floors loomed before the Doctor. Daleks flew through the air, their eyestalks twirling as they noticed him. The Doctor took in the room in a second. Dense machinery lined the walls, and the cacophony of Dalek orders rang through the air. The Doctor turned back to his Dalek escort.

"Not exactly the prison cell I was expecting," the Doctor confessed.

"THE DOCTOR WILL CEASE TALKING!" one of the accompanying Daleks shouted at him. "MOVE! MOVE!"

The Doctor followed them into the center of the room. Around him, he noticed, the flying Daleks had begun to divert their flight paths away from him, almost purposely avoiding getting anywhere near him. The Doctor clasped his hands behind his back.

"So, this is your center of operations, is it?" he asked. "Not so typical for you to bring me in here. Even with an armed escort."

"OPEN TRANSMISSION TO DALEK SUPREME!" one of the Daleks shouted.

"TRANSMISSION INITIATED!" another one called back.

A screen popped up in front of the Doctor, displaying a glowing white Dalek, its eyestalk pointing directly at him.

"Transmission?" the Doctor asked. "You mean he's not here in person?" He gave a sideways grin, and leaned back on his heels. "Oh, let me guess. This little project of yours — it's a long shot, isn't it? One last ditch effort to get back into the Dalek Supreme's favor. The Dalek Supreme knows it's going to fail. That's why he's abandoned you."

"REPORT," the Dalek Supreme commanded.

"THE DOCTOR HAS BEEN LOCATED!" shouted one of the Daleks accompanying the Doctor. "HE IS A PRISONER OF THE DALEKS!"

"Which explains why I'm here," the Doctor continued. "You're boasting. Boasting to your superiors that you've managed to capture me, your greatest enemy. Because you're desperate. Desperate to get back in the Dalek Supreme's favor, desperate to save your own necks. Desperate enough to try to get me to help you, despite the very real danger that I'll destroy you."

"SILENCE!" a Dalek nearby shouted.

The Doctor grinned. "Bet the Dalek Supreme doesn't care. He probably thinks I'll foil your plans and wipe you out. Get rid of a few dissident Daleks for him, save him a job."

"SILENCE!" the Daleks around the Doctor commanded.

"THE DOCTOR WILL MAKE THE NECESSARY ADJUSTMENTS!" the Dalek to the Doctor's right informed the Dalek Supreme.

"Adjustments?" the Doctor asked. "What am I adjusting?"

"AND HIS COMPANIONS?" the Dalek Supreme demanded.

"No companions," the Doctor put in. "Came alone, this time. Didn't want to involve others, not with Daleks around."

"COMPANIONS NOT REQUIRED," the Dalek beside the Doctor replied. "THE DOCTOR WILL OBEY!"

"Obey what?" the Doctor asked. "What do you want me for? Why am I here?"

"YOU HAVE KNOWLEDGE OF THE HUMANOIDS KNOWN AS THE GREAT VAMPIRES?" the Dalek Supreme asked.

The Doctor gave a laugh. "Ah, so that's it!" he cried, clapping his hands. "Your Fountain's not working!"

"SILENCE!" shouted one of the Daleks beside the Doctor.

"THE DOCTOR WILL FIX THE GENETIC DISINTEGRATOR!" another Dalek shouted. "OR HE WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"

"Genetic…?" The mirth fell off the Doctor's face in an instant, and he took a shaky breath. "Life force energy. Strong enough to rewrite DNA. Or simply unravel it." His eyes skimmed across the Daleks. "That's why you brought me here. To destroy every living creature in the universe."

"THE DALEKS ARE THE SUPREME BEINGS!" the Dalek Supreme shouted.

"ALL OTHER LIFE FORMS ARE IRRELEVENT!" the Daleks around him confirmed.

"Which is all very impressive on paper," said the Doctor, a little more confidently, the lightness back in his voice. He clasped his hands behind his back. "Only you can't do it, can you? Because you've stolen technology from the Dark Times, technology that hasn't been used for billions upon billions of years. It's incompatible with anything that exists now. You may know enough to use the Fountain of Kulkmattoll, but you don't know how to make the energy it stores power your own machine." He gave a little smile, as he put the final pieces together. "Which explains why you believe you need me. You think I can make the two systems compatible."

"THE DOCTOR WILL MAKE THE NECESSARY ADJUSTMENTS!" one of the Daleks behind him commanded.

"YOU WILL OBEY!" the Daleks around him echoed. "YOU WILL OBEY!"

"Or what?" the Doctor asked. "You'll exterminate me? But you're going to do that anyways. If I help you, I'd condemn not only myself, but the lives of every other life form in the cosmos. So if you're trying to make me help you, you'll have to come up with a far, far more convincing argument."

"OBEY," the Dalek Supreme commanded, "OR WE WILL DESTROY YOUR TARDIS."

The Doctor froze. "You'll what?"

"HEARTS RATE INCREASING!" the Dalek beside the Doctor yelled. "PROBABILITY FACTOR HIGH!"

"Probability factor?" the Doctor asked. "What probability factor?"

"THE PROBABILITY THAT YOU'VE LEFT YOUR COMPANIONS INSIDE THE TARDIS," the Dalek Supreme said.

"What is this for you, Dalek Supreme? A test of how I'll react in different situations?" the Doctor asked. "Am I your lab rat?"

"OBEY!" the Dalek Supreme shouted. "OR WE SHALL DESTROY YOUR TARDIS, AND ALL COMPANIONS INSIDE."

The Doctor raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay," he said. "Yes, fine, you got me. My companions are inside the TARDIS. Don't hurt them."

"THE DOCTOR WILL OBEY!" the Dalek to the Doctor's right shouted.

"How do you even know I _can_ obey?" the Doctor asked. "The Great Vampires were wiped out billions of years ago. The Fountain of Kulkmattoll was just a fairy story by the time I was born. Who says I know anything about that sort of technology?"

"TEMPORAL SIGNATURE TRACES SUGGESTS PROLONGED EXPOSURE TO THE HUMANOID FEMALE KNOWN AS 'SLAYER'," a Dalek to the Doctor's left informed him. "THEREFORE, IT IS LOGICAL THAT YOU WOULD SHARE HER KNOWLEDGE."

"You think she knows about the Great Vampires?" the Doctor asked.

"THE FEMALE'S FULL TITLE IS 'VAMPIRE SLAYER'," said a Dalek behind the Doctor. "THIS IMPLIES FULL KNOWLEDGE OF THE GREAT VAMPIRES AND THEIR TECHNOLOGY."

The Doctor shook his head. "Oh, no wonder the Dalek Supreme doesn't like you. You lot really are unbelievably stupid."

"EXPLAIN!" shouted another Dalek.

"No human will ever be able to tell you anything about the Great Vampires," said the Doctor. "Not if you go back through time and track down every Vampire Slayer that ever existed. You know why? Because humans never encountered the Great Vampires. The Time Lords wiped them out long before humanity ever existed. And your Time War got rid of all of _them_." He stared the Dalek beside him in the eyestalk. "Face it, Daleks. Your project is a failure. Anyone who's ever fought a Great Vampire is dead, gone, and locked out of time and space. You lose. Again."

The Daleks said nothing, for a moment. Then, the Dalek Supreme's eyestalk twitched.

"EXCEPT FOR YOU," he said.

The Doctor froze. Then he pasted a grin on his face. "Nice try," he said. "But race memory doesn't work like that. Billions of years before I was born, remember? You might have one Time Lord, but you've got the wrong one. I know nothing."

"INITIATE TEMPORAL PLAYBACK!" the Dalek Supreme commanded.

"TEMPORAL PLAYBACK INITIATED!" the Dalek beside the Doctor shouted back.

Another window popped up in front of the Doctor, this one showing himself — his last self, with the pinstripe suit and red trainers — and Buffy, tramping through a cluster of trees, a blinking and complicated looking device in his hand. Buffy clutched a stake, and looked around, then back at the younger-him.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Buffy-on-the-recording asked. "You're not exactly Mr. Vampire Killer."

"Oi! Fought off the King of the Great Vampires myself," younger-him said. "Hybrids like these… well, piece of cake, really."

The screen popped out of existence. The Doctor kept staring at the spot where it had been, now just empty air.

"DOCTOR!" the Dalek Supreme shouted.

The Doctor spun on his heel. "All right," he said. "So I was lying. But that still doesn't mean I'm going to help you. Because I won't. I won't do it. Go ahead. Destroy my TARDIS! Destroy the Earth! Exterminate me! There's nothing you can do to make me unravel the genome of every other life form in existence. There is no power you can wield, no threat you can deliver that will make me obey you. I refuse, and that's final."

"ALERT!" one of the Daleks at the other side of the ship shrieked. "ALERT! UNIDENTIFIED HUMANOID LOCATED!"

"DISPLAY!" the Dalek Supreme commanded.

A window popped up, revealing Buffy, standing directly in front of a dusty, scuffed brown metallic machine. A Dalek stood right behind her, its gun stalk aimed at her.

"Elizabeth," the Doctor breathed.

"IT IS THE HUMANOID FEMALE KNOWN AS 'SLAYER'!" the Dalek beside the Doctor shouted.

"Doctor," said Buffy, "I'm sorry. I didn't disable the Fountain in time."

"It's all right," the Doctor told her. "I understand."

"THE HUMANOID FEMALE WILL BE TAKEN FOR FULL BRAIN EXTRACTION!" the Dalek beside Buffy announced.

"No!" the Doctor protested. "Leave her alone! She doesn't know anything! She's never even seen a Great Vampire before. Please, I…" the Doctor trailed off, his eyes fixed on Buffy. His shoulders slumped, and in a low voice, he told the Daleks, "I'll do what you want."

"What?" Buffy exclaimed. "Doctor, you idiot! Don't do what the evil-killy-robot-things want! They're evil-killy-robot-things!"

"SILENCE!" the Dalek beside Buffy commanded. "THE HUMANOID FEMALE WILL CEASE TALKING!"

"YOU WILL MAKE THE NECESSARY ADJUSTMENTS?" the Dalek Supreme asked the Doctor.

The Doctor hung his head. "Yes," he said. "As long as you don't harm Elizabeth, I'll fix your machine."


	11. Chapter 11

The Doctor knelt by the side of the worn-out, dusty brown machine, sonic screwdriver back in his own hands. Beside him, a number of Daleks watched over him, supervised him, made sure that he didn't do anything that would fiddle around with the basic function of either machine. Double checking his work to make sure he didn't sabotage the devices he was repairing.

"You can't do this," said Buffy, from her spot on the other side of the room.

The Doctor gave her a sad look, then went back to work.

"I'm not going to let you," Buffy insisted. "I'm the Slayer. I set the rules."

"SILENCE!" the Daleks commanded.

"If I don't," the Doctor told her, without even glancing back at her, "they'll kill you."

"They're going to kill me anyways," said Buffy. "And you. If we die now, at least they won't get what they want."

"They'll tear apart my brain and yours in order to get the information," the Doctor told her. "This is the only way."

"I don't even have any information!" Buffy shouted. "Let them tear apart my brain! I don't care!"

The Doctor just shook his head, and continued with the sonic.

"Oh, my God, what's wrong with you?" Buffy cried. "Do you even understand what you're doing?"

"Yes."

"This isn't just vampire-killing a planet," said Buffy. "You're going to be responsible for killing off every life form in existence. All that, just because of me? I'm not anywhere near worth every other living thing in the universe!"

The Doctor looked up at her, a sad smile on his face. "But you are," he said.

Buffy faltered, as she met his eyes.

"What, really?" she asked.

"Wouldn't Riley Finn say so?"

"Well, yeah," said Buffy. "But he's not yo…" Buffy trailed off, then cleared her throat. "I mean, when he tells me stuff like that, it's usually in the context of 'you're worth killing this Polgara demon' or something. It's not usually… you know. Like this."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows at her.

"And that doesn't matter anyways," Buffy snapped. "Because you're still trying to do something terrible and horrible and… and… and you're worse than the Daleks!"

The smile dropped off the Doctor's face. He slumped his shoulders, and turned back to his work.

"No! I didn't mean… just… please, Doctor," Buffy begged him. "Please. Don't do this. Don't give the Daleks what they want."

The Doctor stood up. "Too late," he said. "It's already done." He met her eyes, and she met his. For a moment, they just stood there, looking at one another.

"YOU HAVE FINISHED THE ADJUSTMENTS?" a Dalek from beside the Doctor demanded.

"Yes," said the Doctor.

The Dalek rolled over to the Genetic Disintegrator, its sucker arm touching a panel on the side. The machine sprang into life, every light blazing across its surface. "THE MACHINES ARE COMPATIBLE!" the Dalek informed his superiors. "NO SIGNS OF SABOTAGE DETECTED. THE FOUNTAIN IS READY!"

"READY THE GENETIC DISINTEGRATOR FOR TESTING!" another Dalek instructed.

"ORBIT AROUND COORDINATES 9067/283X10-5-18/ACORN CONFIRMED!" a Dalek from the far end of the room shouted.

The Doctor's eyes went wide. "Avrolancrom Minor," he said.

"But that's where you said—" Buffy started.

"Amy and Rory are," the Doctor continued. He turned to the Daleks. "Listen, please. You can't do this!"

A screen popped up, and an image of the Dalek Supreme appeared on its surface. "BEGIN CALIBRATION TEST OF GENETIC DISINTEGRATOR!"

"TESTING OF GENETIC DISINTEGRATOR IN TEN RELS!" the Dalek nearest him shouted.

"I'm warning you!" the Doctor said. "Stop this right now!"

"THE DOCTOR WILL BE EXTERMINATED WHEN THE TEST BEGINS," the Dalek Supreme proclaimed. "ALL CREATURES WHO ARE NOT DALEKS WILL BE EXTERMINATED! THE DALEKS WILL REIGN SUPREME!"

"THE DALEKS WILL REIGN SUPREME! THE DALEKS WILL REIGN SUPREME!" the other Daleks shouted.

The Genetic Disintegrator whirred with power, its bulky black exterior humming and pulsing with energy.

"FIVE! FOUR!" the Dalek to the Doctor's right shouted.

"Doctor, do something!" Buffy shouted over the Daleks.

"THREE! TWO!" the Dalek continued.

"I'm sorry," said the Doctor.

"ONE!"


	12. Chapter 12

The Genetic Disintegrator whirred with power, a blue glow pulsing around the outside. The glow grew brighter, and brighter, until it stung Buffy and the Doctor's eyes. Then, in a flash, it burst forth from the machine, tearing across the Dalek ship in waves.

The light passed.

Buffy opened her eyes. So did the Doctor. Both felt perfectly fine.

Around them, the Daleks began screaming.

"ALERT!" they cried. "ALERT! I CANNOT…." and their words grew garbled, and then faded away into choking, gasping, and then silence.

"I warned you," said the Doctor.

"DOCTOR! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" the Dalek Supreme demanded. "EXPLAIN! EXPLAIN!"

Buffy crossed her arms. "He brought a weapon," she said, with a self-satisfied smile.

* * *

Earlier…

The moment the Doctor left the general vicinity of the TARDIS, escorted by a large cluster of Daleks, Buffy stole out through the door. She could hear the Doctor in her mind, as he was communicating with her — telling her that he hadn't worked out anything useful, yet, but he'd keep in touch.

Seriously, even over a telepathic connection, the Doctor couldn't shut up.

_"I'm going to create a telepathic link between us in your mind," the Doctor had said, before they landed on the Dalek ship. "I'll be able to communicate with you, but because you aren't telepathic, the link will only go one way. I'll have to trust that you're able to do what I tell you."_

"You're looking for an enormous, dusty, incredibly old-looking machine," the Doctor instructed her, over the telepathic link. "It should be obvious — something they've clearly just dug out of the ground. You'll probably find it in a central location. It's something I imagine they'd want to access easily."

Okay, she could find that.

Buffy crept down the corridors, looking for this Fountain thing. She was good at sneaking around. That was what Riley had said — it had taken trained soldiers 45 minutes to track her down, and she'd disabled them all in seconds. So Buffy didn't know what these Daleks were on about with this 'supreme being' stuff, because she was pretty sure she had the supreme sneaking up skills.

And then she found it. Just inside a room to her left lay an enormous device, one that appeared scuffed, dirty, dusty and incredibly old. Buffy thought it looked a little like an oversized and seriously broken air conditioner. Buffy edged closer. About five Daleks spun around the room, shouting out commands to one another and trying to initialize different devices surrounding the two colossal machines in the center.

Buffy knew what to do. The Daleks had limited vision — she could sneak past them when they weren't looking. Yeah, supreme beings her foot. No hands, limited eyesight, no sense of fashion — seriously, the Daleks had nothing at all going for them. Except, you know, the fact that they were practically unbeatable. Carefully, Buffy made her way past the Fountain, and towards the newer-looking piece of machinery beside it.

"Genetic Disintegrator," came the Doctor over the telepathic link. "That's the name of the other machine. The one the Daleks are using the Fountain to power. It'll be programmed to disintegrate every genome in the universe except for the Dalek genome."

Oh, that was just great. The Daleks weren't going to turn the universe into Daleks. They were just going to kill the rest of the universe off! Talk about a serious superiority complex. These Daleks made Faith's "we're better than everyone else on Earth" speech sound humble by comparison.

"Now, I'm going to give you a set of instructions," the Doctor said, "to flip the programming around, so the disintegrator will only disintegrate Dalek DNA. Don't use the sonic — they've got scanners in this room that will pick it up. But I can talk you through how to do the repairs by hand. It's going to have to be a bit clever, but, well, with a brain like mine, should be simple to hide the sabotage."

Thanks, Doctor. Good to see his ego was back to normal. Buffy made her way over to the Genetic Disintegrator, and prepared herself to follow the Doctor's telepathic instructions. A moment later, the Doctor's instructions began, and Buffy got to work.

_The Doctor had handed her what looked like a metal wedding ring. "Biodamper," said the Doctor. "It'll make sure the Daleks can't trace you until you want them to."_

_"I want them to?" Buffy had asked, slipping the ring on her finger._

_"After you sabotage the device, yes," the Doctor had said. "We want to trick them into activating it, and destroying themselves. So once you're done, take the ring off, and let them capture you. Then we just have to make them think we're doing what they want, and not what we want. So you'll have to shout at me. Tell me I'm mad. Command me to stop. That sort of thing."_

_"I'm good at that," said Buffy._

Once the fixes were done, Buffy made sure everything looked just the way she'd found it, then darted over to the Fountain of Kulkmattoll. She took a deep breath, and slipped the biodamper off her finger.

Alarms blared across the room, and red lights flashed in Buffy's eyes.

"ALERT!" the Daleks screamed. "ALERT! UNIDENTIFIED HUMANOID LIFE FORM DETECTED!"

The Daleks circled her, and she put up her hands. First rule with Daleks — the moment you see them, you need to give them a reason to keep you alive. Well, that was easy enough. Number one way to get the Doctor to cooperate? Threaten his companions.

"I'm the Doctor's companion!" Buffy told them.

_"I won't know whether or not you've succeeded," the Doctor had said. "One way telepathic connection. So, if you have succeeded, the moment the Daleks show me they've captured you, I want you to tell me that you're sorry, but you haven't disabled the Fountain in time. Remember that. You're sorry, but you haven't disabled the Fountain in time. If you say anything else, I'll know you've failed, and I'll have to do something astoundingly clever to get us out of this."_

_"Why do you want me to talk about disabling the Fountain?" Buffy asked._

_"That's what the Daleks will expect you to do," the Doctor told her. "And it'll provide a good cover story for why you were in that room. The Daleks will check over the Fountain, make sure it's still working. But if we're lucky, if we're very, very lucky, they won't check over the other device quite as thoroughly."_

The screen popped up, and she saw the Doctor, standing there, horror on his face but a twinkle in his eyes.

"Doctor, I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't disable the Fountain in time."

"I understand," said the Doctor.


	13. Chapter 13

The Doctor and Buffy ran back towards the TARDIS, through the Dalek spaceship, which was now strewn with empty Dalek life-support machines, the creatures inside having turned to mush when their DNA had been unraveled by the machine. It was a little creepy, Buffy thought. Knowing she and the Doctor were the only creatures left alive on that spaceship.

"Please," said the Doctor as he ran, "do me a favor. Never, ever, ever, _ever_ call yourself my weapon, again. Ever."

"What? That was a great zinger!" Buffy protested. "Riley would probably think I was flirting with you."

"And if you _are_ going to call yourself my weapon," said the Doctor, "could you _please_ not do it on a Dalek space ship!"

"As long as _I_ can still call you _my_ weapon," Buffy said.

"What? No!"

"Well, can I call you my Mister Pointy?" asked Buffy.

The Doctor looked horrified. "Your Mister what?"

"My Mister Pointy," Buffy repeated. "It's—"

"If you never explain to me what that means," the Doctor cut-in, "I'll forgive you for saying I'm worse than the Daleks."

As they rounded the last corner of the ship, the Doctor snapped his fingers, and the TARDIS doors swung open. Buffy and the Doctor tumbled inside.

"I'm sorry I said you were worse than the Daleks," said Buffy. "I just ran out of ideas."

"Oh, no, it was splendid!" said the Doctor. "Very clever of you. After that… tangent we took, you needed to call me something truly horrible so we could get back on track."

"Yeah," said Buffy. The tangent. She remembered that. "You said…" she stopped herself, not really sure she should say the rest.

The Doctor glanced over at her, but didn't answer. And Buffy knew he wouldn't. He didn't need to. When you were worth it, the Doctor let you know. And when you weren't… well, he let you know that, too. And of course, that's all it was. Just the Doctor telling her that she was worth saving. Nothing else.

(So why did it feel like so much more than that?)

"You're worth it, too, you know," said Buffy.

Because she might not be the ultimate authority in the universe, and in this century, probably wasn't even the ultimate authority on Earth anymore, but… damn it, she was still Buffy Summers! And that had to count for something!

The Doctor grinned, and then swept her into a tight hug. Buffy hugged him back, tightly. She could feel his twin hearts beating against her own chest. And she wished, not for the first time, that she could stay with him, that she could hold him and never, ever let him go. Her Doctor. Her weapon.

"My Mr. Pointy," she muttered into his shoulder.

The Doctor pulled her back, hands on shoulders, holding her an arm's length away. He regarded her face, curiously. "You're incredibly odd. You know that?"

"Pot. Kettle. Black," said Buffy.

The Doctor beamed at her, and dropped her shoulders. Then, spinning on his heel, he went back to his usual hobby of running around the central console. Buffy leaned against the railing around the console, and crossed her legs. She shook her hair behind her shoulders.

"So that's it?" Buffy asked him. "No more Daleks, ever?"

"Ah, well, no. Unfortunately, that was just a calibration test," the Doctor told her. "The energy stored in the Fountain was enough to wipe out every Dalek nearby, but the Dalek Supreme and his chums still got away."

"That sucks," said Buffy. "Can't we go back and widen the range a little? Get all the rest of them, too?"

The Doctor flipped another switch. "Can't."

"Don't tell me you're doing that thing where you say that they're living creatures and they have a right to exist," said Buffy. "Their mission statement is to get rid of every other creature in the universe except for them. It's got to be all right to kill them!"

"Elizabeth," the Doctor said, calmly, "we used up all the energy the Daleks had stored inside the Fountain. And I'm not draining the life out of any more planets. Not even to destroy the Daleks."

"Oh," said Buffy. "In that case, I guess I'm with you." She frowned. "What are we going to do about that Fountain thing, anyways?"

"Black hole," the Doctor told her.

"That's your answer to everything," Buffy said.

The TARDIS engines wheezed into life, and the TARDIS shook. Buffy managed to keep her balance, as the ship tumbled through the vortex. The Doctor yanked a lever, and the TARDIS shook again. He grinned. "There we go!" he said. "Down a black hole and out of the universe! Goodbye, Fountain of Kulkmattoll!" He swung around to face Buffy, a gleam in his eye. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Aren't you going to tell me how terribly clever and impressive I am?" the Doctor asked.

"You?" Buffy said. " _I_ was the one who did all the work."

The Doctor's face fell, and he looked like a chided school boy. Or a kicked puppy. Buffy sighed. For someone who seemed to wield ultimate power over time and space, he really did act like a five year old sometimes.

(At least _this_ Doctor, unlike a certain previous incarnation Buffy could think of, didn't go around licking things. And people. Okay, just one person. Buffy had had a _very_ hard time remembering she had a boyfriend _that_ day.)

"Okay, fine," she said. "Good job, Doctor. Yay! Hurray! Clap, clap. Can we get back to Sunnydale, now? I've got some angry friends I need to beg for forgiveness."

He beamed at her. "I have just the thing! We could take them to the fifth moon of Kerkazolia," he said. "They have the most amazing beaches you could imagine, and the sun never stops shining! Clear purple skies every day, and you'll never get sunburned, because the water acts as a—"

"I was leaning more towards the baking cookies approach," said Buffy.

"Ah, well, that could work, too," said the Doctor. "You know, I have the most amazing recipe for—"

"Come on, Doctor," said Buffy. "Riley is worried enough about you already without me going all outer-spacey on him."

The Doctor adjusted his bow tie. "I'll just… take you home, then," he said.

Buffy smiled. "Great. And… thanks."

The Doctor turned back to the central console. "Sunnydale, 2000, short time after we left. Residence of Rupert Giles."

Buffy swallowed around a lump in her throat. "No, I mean… Doctor," she said.

He spun around, facing her, regarding her with curious green eyes.

"Thank you," said Buffy. "Really, really thank you. For... you know. Willow. If she… if anything…" Buffy took a deep breath. "Just… thank you. You have no idea."

The Doctor met her eyes with his own, and she could see the echo of every friend he ever had, every person he ever lost inside those eyes. "Elizabeth Summers," he said, "I have every idea."

Then he yanked a lever, and sent his ship spinning back into the vortex.

The ship shook around them, making Buffy feel as if she and the Doctor were popcorn kernels in a microwave. She clutched the TARDIS railing, trying to make it look like she was just leaning against it to be all cool-looking and stuff, and didn't need it to keep her balance at all.

"So," she said to the Doctor. "All those nicknames you've got — you know, the really bad ones — those are from the Daleks, right?"

"Most of them," the Doctor confirmed. "Destroyer of Worlds, Bringer of Darkness, Dark Lord — those are all Dalek. Of course, there are others. The Sevateem call me the Evil One, the Galayari call me the Sandman, the vampires call me the Bringer of…." He stopped himself.

"What?" Buffy asked.

"Nothing," said the Doctor. "Absolutely nothing. Oncoming Storm, that's what they call me."

"No, you said they called you the Bringer of Something," Buffy said. "What? Bringer of Big Blue Boxes? Bringer of Vamp-Away? Bringer of Headaches to the Slayer?"

The Doctor said nothing, just staring at the central console. Buffy's smile died away, as she saw that terrible expression on his face.

"Doctor?" she asked, a little nervously. "What are you a Bringer of?"

"Nothing. It's not important. And _certainly_ not something that should appear in your little notebook."

"Notebook?" asked Buffy. "But that's only for stuff that hasn't happened yet. That would mean that whatever you're a Bringer of, you haven't…"

The Doctor met her eyes. He had that same look on his face, the look he'd had when he realized that the Daleks were doing something worse than he'd ever imagined. It was a look that took the air right out of Buffy's lungs.

"Done it, yet," she whispered.

One more clue. One more puzzle piece. His past, her future. And it was something terrible.

They said nothing the entire rest of the way home to Sunnydale.

* * *

The End


End file.
